148 – Transforming Research through Community Collaboration

David: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to the IDEMS podcast. I’m David Stern, a founding director of IDEMS, and it’s my privilege to yet again be here with my wonderful friend Moustapha from Niger, talking about his work in processing and agroecology. 

Welcome Moustapha again. We just had an episode the other day where we were talking about how you won this prize, this cultural prize, and we got to the stage where you were explaining the issues around scaling and how this is moving from one village to another and how your role in this is changing and how this relates in some sense to our approaches to research that we’ve been working on together for just over a decade now.

So that’s what I’d love to dig into today. 

Moustapha: Okay. Thank you so much, David, for this opportunity you give, to [00:01:00] talk about the work and how we’re seeing the impact of the work. And just as I have mentioned is really to give power and authority to the local people, the local farmers. Because, through this project, I really noticed that they have a lot of knowledge, they know their context. And if we can connect what we have as scientists to their work, by listening to them, by giving them the opportunity to drive, the work will come out of something that will benefit the whole community.

David: Absolutely. And I’d like to just draw out the fact that for others it might [00:02:00] not be obvious that when you are talking about them driving the work, you are not talking about them just driving the implementation and so on, that you actually want them to become drivers of the research. And this is a big part of what we’ve been working together to try to see. 

Moustapha: Exactly, exactly. Because they’re very smart to return what they learn, to give also to people. So there is a kind of continuous co-learning process with a lot of interconnection of knowledge coming from one village to another and building it with the scientist knowledge. So you see, so if this interconnection, I think with a lot of patience and digging into the, you know, [00:03:00] the knowledge, will always break out something that will work.

David: I want to pick up on a couple of things you just said. Our relationship goes back a long time and your using the term patience is so insightful to me. Because one of the things that we’ve had over the years with your project is that the reports, the publications, have never matched the impact on the ground. And you’ve always had this additional knowledge because you’ve given so much ownership to the local partners to drive and to lead. 

Moustapha: Yes. 

David: And that, well, that mutual respect you have with your local, with the partners for you actually on the ground working has been incredible for me to observe and it’s been something I’ve learned a lot from, that you’ve often put [00:04:00] your, if you want, your needs as a researcher aside so that you can better support. And that approach is now bearing fruit. Because now the results you are getting are powerful. 

Moustapha: Exactly. 

David: And it’s been a slow patient process. 

Moustapha: Yes. 

David: But observing you doing that and going through that process, and seeding your power as the lead researcher, you were the lead researcher in so many different ways, but in terms of the power dynamic, you were giving up a lot of that power to be able to support them. 

Moustapha: Exactly. Giving them the lead, giving them the opportunity to show. And that’s what is missing in most of the cases. People think that they just have to come and tell them to do this, to do that. 

David: Exactly. And as a researcher, a lot of the incentives are aligned to doing that. You would’ve had many more publications if they had just done what you told them.

Moustapha: Exactly, yes. 

David: And this is a problem with [00:05:00] our research setting. That that ability to do the right research is undervalued compared to the idea that the researcher actually being able to get the theoretical framework is overvalued. What I think is amazing with the way you’ve done this, you’ve never compromised on your theoretical frameworks. Your desire to be able to state that the transformation of local resources in ways which are improving the nutrition in communities. 

And you’ve been looking at both rural and urban, and had success in both of those contexts. 

Moustapha: Yes. Yes. 

David: And to be able to recognize that your research framework is really very solid and it’s underlying all of this. And it’s never compromised. But the power of what you are discovering, the power of not just implementation, but the research, you’ve seeded so much of it to your partners. I can say from the other side, there has been frustration as why [00:06:00] isn’t Moustapha publishing all these results? When we talk to him, there’s so much wonderful information, but the publications aren’t coming out. 

Moustapha: Yeah. 

David: But I think now you are actually having the last word on this, because those publications are coming out, and they’re more powerful because of that slow approach you took which enabled others to take that power. 

Moustapha: Yes, the opportunity to express what they have and to be part of the solution, and part of their problem. 

David: Well, and part of the research process and the learning process, which is what you’ve enabled. 

I wanted to speak to something I’ve heard, but I want to get your thoughts on this.

Moustapha: Okay. 

David: Part of that patience, which we often forget as researchers, is that the people that you are working with, which you’ve now got this long history with, they are learning how to play their [00:07:00] role in that co-learning process as well. 

Moustapha: Yeah, exactly. 

David: It’s not something where, which you can just go into a community and do. It’s something where you build the relationships, you build the people, you allow them to take that leadership and to find success for themselves within that framing. 

Moustapha: Exactly. Yes. Exactly. And also, the other aspect is really, by giving them this lead, they are taking the leadership and they have less timidity, less shy to express, and they’re much more confident of what they are getting and the position they’re having to do the work. You see? So I think this is something that many people don’t see. 

David: And I think one of the reasons many people don’t see is very little [00:08:00] research funding spans the sort of 20 years that your research funding has spanned. And so it enabled you to take this slow and patient approach. I’m not saying that all research should take 20 years, but I’m saying that you’ve had many results along the way and you’ve been able to sort of use this to, bit by bit… 

Moustapha: I remember if we come to digitalization, two years ago, two or three years ago, we had a training from Gabriela to develop a video. So when they were part of that training, they even get some award. But with the time, just the fact that we have been initiated to that event, they have been practicing, and now they are, I can say experts. Because they know that if you are taking a image, you have to get a right position of the cell [00:09:00] phone. You don’t have to move your hand. So from time and practicing and being exposing, they have a lot of video. 

Like that guy I say, we have just engaged to do that video to us, that guy, some of them send some of their videos, like Andre and some other, and the guy said, those are very good video, I can use them, they’re perfect. 

David: I want to pick up on this because you mentioned Gabriela, who is part of the agroecology support team, which is one of the real strengths of the Global Collaboration of Resilient Food Systems, is it has these support partners. Ourselves for research methods support, Ernesto, Gabriela and the team on the agroecology support. And our role is to support. And it can take many falls. You mentioned simply a training in creating videos. 

And it is this element that those skills, often, they [00:10:00] serve a purpose. And as you say, they evolve over time, and allowing it to have time to evolve is exactly part of the approach you have built. And this is then part of the success I believe you have had. 

I want to come back to another aspect of the scaling in the way in which the different groups have started to spread. There’s an element of, when you started about 10 years ago to really support these women’s groups to think about training others. There were some very difficult conversations you were having, which were thinking about who had responsibility for what. 

And as you say, this shift of power was really critical, where there was an expectation that you, as the researcher, well, you would be the [00:11:00] one who found the equipment for them who told them what to do and told them who to train and so on. And you flipped that. You said, well, I can support, but it’s your responsibility. 

Moustapha: Yeah, exactly. Yes. 

David: Can you just speak a bit more to, well, I knew the Tera group was the first group that really took this up and ran with it. But since it’s happened in Falwell, it’s happened in Burkina, it is happening in a number of other places. Can you just speak to what you’ve observed of how you shifted that power relation, how that happened? 

Moustapha: Yeah. Actually, before starting to work with the people in the village, I was just like the other people thinking that, okay, we came from universities, we have knowledge, so we just have a project, we have a work plan, and we want it to be executed.

And you do this, you do that. That’s the way, when I have started to communicate with them and I have started [00:12:00] to see the way they think about their context, the way they think about their problems and how to solve their problems, I say that this is something that I have never and ever thought that this community, these people, these individuals are up to. 

You see? Then I say, ah, then I have to be very careful if I want to learn. Because I will see opportunity to learn from them. I just have to listen to them and let them play, and then give them any ingredients they want and let them do the plate. 

David: It’s interesting you frame it like that. I have a very specific memory [00:13:00] from over 10 years ago when we were first, when I was first meeting you and starting to support your project of the analysis, the economic analysis. You remember this between the urban and the rural. 

Moustapha: Yes. Yes, exactly. 

David: And maybe I’ll just speak to this very quickly because this was, I think, as I’ve observed it, this was where this shift was happening, and I observed this shift in you, where the economic analysis happened and everybody took it at face value, and the economic analysis said you should not do any work in the rural environments, it’s just not cost effective.

And you should only do the work in the urban environments. And I remember looking at that poster and I remember hearing you tell the stories about the rural, rural environments. 

Moustapha: Yeah. 

David: And just thinking, why doesn’t the analysis match with your stories? This was when I was sort of starting, and so I looked into the analysis and we then discussed it together. And we saw that in the analysis they had costed all the time spent in [00:14:00] the rural case as if it was paid for in an urban setting. 

Moustapha: Exactly. 

David: And so the women’s time was costed as if it was urban employees. 

Moustapha: Yes. 

David: But it wasn’t, it was community building, it was serving all these other purposes. And this is where those discussions that we had, and then I think you then ran with this in terms of actually trying to say, well, how can we give value to what they’re doing.

Because what they’re doing isn’t just the economic analysis in terms of optimizing time spent. Because that time has changed their standing in the villages, changed their power, it’s changed all these other things. 

Moustapha: Yeah. 

David: And that’s where you’ve mentioned in the previous episode that the women now talk about the fact, well, they have standing because they are solving their family’s problems, their communities’ problems, they are [00:15:00] respected within the village. They are sought after. 

Moustapha: Yes, exactly. 

David: And what you’ve created is much more than just that economic analysis. And this was before we started talking really about agroecology. But when the concepts of agroecology then came into the community, you really took them and embraced them. Exactly because you’d seen these social layers coming in. 

And so, I guess, one of the things which I think you have highlighted to me, and I’ve really learned from observing your elements, is that we need to be very careful with the analyses we do and the results we portray.

And I’ve seen you become very slow and careful on this. 

Moustapha: Yes, exactly. 

David: Do you agree that that sort of become part of what you’re doing? You are very happy to take your time and make sure you are communicating the right thing. 

Moustapha: Yes, exactly. Yes. 

David: [00:16:00] Because there’s always this complex social component which takes time to play out and observe. And with that, there are things that you are now confident to state. And one of these which has been mentioned before is the role, not only that these local communities and women’s groups can play in the co-learning, but also in actually the scaling of the processes. 

Moustapha: Yeah. Yes, exactly. As you mentioned, patience is really the key. Listening to them is the key. Giving them the space to operate is also another key. So those three have to be there, for sure to reach to something. Because as you just mentioned about their time, that [00:17:00] is costed in the analysis was wrong. Because they have a lot of time in the village and they’re together and there are so many value they have seen from their work. An economist from urban city, may not see, you see? 

And they will point them to you, seems like just now, they say it changed their life, they’re forming order, they’re getting incomes from it. They’re seeing all their children being saved. You see, the life of people, of their children is priceless and this product is saving. And also the fact they’re being expanded and knowing other village because of that project, they say they would have never gone to other, they just hear about some village in their location, like some are [00:18:00] 50 kilometers, 100 or beyond. But because of that, things they have to share, they are dragged to those village. 

David: You’ve used the word dragged, which I love. I understand exactly, I know the context. I understand what you’re meaning by this. But what I don’t know and what I don’t understand, which I’d love you to sort of help me with is, when you started out, the equipment that you were sort of working on, that you were studying was central. 

Moustapha: Yes. 

David: Now, I believe it’s the training and the knowledge, which is much more central. That the equipment is sort of secondary, but it’s still important. Can you help me to understand what does it look like when they get called to these other villages? ’cause that’s not happening through you. That’s third parties, are calling them in. You know, is this a new women’s group which is getting formed there and they’re now being trained by them? What does this look like? 

Moustapha: Usually like this new village will also come because they will hear about that village that is having [00:19:00] a centre that have a product that can save their children, that can give incomes. So some come to the centre and get training. They also go to those village. So it is a kind of front and back. Everybody’s getting the opportunity to see another context and something that is valuable for them. 

So if you take like the equipment, the equipment now is, as you said, something secondary because most of the equipment, they don’t see as something very big. They just see it as a means that can lessen their physical activities, that they’ll still be there to use their time and their physical efforts to complement their equipment. So you see the way they see the things. 

David: This is wonderful because this is scalable in a way that I was always questioning, you know? If the [00:20:00] equipment is the central piece, then what happens when it breaks down? What happens if you can’t get the pieces and so on. And so the fact that this whole thing has shifted, that the equipment is added value is how it should be. 

Moustapha: Yes, exactly. You see? And they’re very cost effective. They’re not so big, very small equipment. I remember the mill equipment cost less than $200. That can produce 500 kilo of flour in the day, is not small for the village. You see? So when you see all this piece of equipment and also the efforts they bring, the knowledge, and the solution is actually the big for them.

Like the solution that all this suspension of items and knowledge connected together bring is so [00:21:00] big for the community that they will always go for that. 

David: And I’ve got to ask, because we played a small role in training about how to do the accounting, how to actually understand for these groups. Is that something that’s getting shared from village to village as well? 

Moustapha: Well, yeah, first year, easily. Exactly. 

David: I mean, this is really interesting because in the initial groups, the Tera group, for example, when they came to us, they got to the stage where they had these meticulous notes, but they weren’t quite sure how to use them. And now they are using them. 

Moustapha: Yes. And now they are very, very like, impatient to have the tablet and use it for this accounting, you see? 

David: Yes. 

Moustapha: They’re so excited and I told them that we would come to that. You see? 

David: It’s these small steps.

Moustapha: Yes. Small. Exactly. They want to share, they want to share anything they get, you know.

David: And it is something I look forward to discussing this with you through the course of this week and discussing how we can support that in small ways, [00:22:00] because what I’m hearing, which I’m so proud of, what you’ve achieved. This idea that they are looking for technology as a secondary support. It is added value. It is what technology should be. 

Moustapha: I noticed, like even, I don’t know if you notice it, our last survey, during the survey, because we had some site activities for the project while collecting the data. So we noticed that most of the women are bringing their daughters, and I have noticed a lot of new young face. And I ask in one of those village, they told me that actually they have started to think about a replacement.

Because they may need to really at some point start bringing their daughters in that activities because it is so [00:23:00] important to them and they would like them to see what is happening. You see? 

So even for the survey, I think, Amadou, who were not like, you know, we’re very strict with age, so some of them were not involved. But they were just involved in some evaluation and some other activities going on in the village. 

David: Absolutely. 

Moustapha: So I noticed that they’re really thinking about future, in terms of human capital. You’ll see some of them in the videos. 

David: Yeah. Just to give, just to put this into context for the listeners, Amadou Aboubacari is part of the research method support team based in Niger, who has been part of your team going out, enabling the surveys to happen at scale. And these have been really pretty big surveys. 

Moustapha: All the survey, the vision, the organization, everything. Because sometimes Lowali is not available. 

David: Just to put again into context. Lawali is another collaborator from Fuma Gaskiya, a computer scientist who’s built an app, which [00:24:00] has the technologies to do a lot of this data collection, which you are using as part of your work. 

Moustapha: Exactly, yes. Between 2003 to 2004, we collected more than 4,000 household.

David: Sorry, 2023 to 2024. 

Moustapha: Yeah. Yeah. Because we had two survey, big survey of 3000 plus and 1000 plus. And without, their assistant will not be able to collect all of this data that we’re still exploring. 

David: And this is the thing, this is where you’ve gone from being a researcher, using, if you want, your colleagues to test out your innovations to a researcher who slowly and patiently works with the communities. And now with these large scale surveys and so on, you are back to actually getting the research findings, but maybe in a more social science aspect rather than the technology aspects.

And so that shows your own human evolution that you’ve [00:25:00] gone through in thinking about the research, in embedding this patience, which has been so important. 

I’m conscious we’re out of time again, but this is, we can keep going for ages. 

Moustapha: Last time we had a meeting with Amadou, I was telling him that I want to be able to this year to really capitalize all this data we have. We have so many data. And I think that can speak to the world on this work. 

David: And this is the thing that it’s been so long coming, actually getting to the stage where this data really highlights what you’ve been working on. 

Moustapha: Yes, yes. And in which context we can publish them, the type of article, journals. There are so many. I think maybe this week we’ll talk a little bit with your team. 

David: That’s what we’re here for. 

Moustapha: Yes. About this. And we really thank you because it also changed our way of thinking. It changed. I remember [00:26:00] our director general at INRAN, when I first started, he is a rice breeder, you know him? 

David: Yes. 

Moustapha: About agroecology. He was, you know, many people confuse agroecology and Green Revolution. They’re close at some point, maybe you know more about those things than me. Then, he said, but Moustapha, how can we feed our people without using fertilizer? That was his first thinking as the rice, actually he is not the rice breeder, but he’s an agronomist working more on rice.

I told him, don’t see the, like, the challenge in that way. You have to see the challenge in the way that that fertilizer is available. We have local fertilizer, we [00:27:00] have local practice that people are already doing. And if you scale at the dimension of each farmer what we think about agroecological transition, you will see opportunities and solutions.

David: I think this is a really good place to finish because it’s something which we could just speak to very quickly. 

Moustapha: Yeah. 

David: There are challenges around how do you feed urban populations once you have a highly urbanized context and so on. So there are challenges about how you feed urban populations once you actually have these mechanisms which are less industrialized. But part of the recognition is that in a lot of the contexts that you are working and that we’re supporting, industrialized agriculture hasn’t worked, it hasn’t had the success that it’s had elsewhere. 

And even the success that it’s had [00:28:00] elsewhere, there are issues which have emerged from it where you actually get sort of the problems with the soil over the longer term, the environmental impact, which has led to a lot of loss of biodiversity, other things which have had other negative effects.

So, there is an element where when you have highly urbanized populations, you do need to have mechanisms of agriculture which are fundamentally extractive, because you have to feed the urban centres. 

Moustapha: Yeah. 

David: But in the context that you are working with, you still have high levels of rural population. And they have not been served by these mechanisms. And actually the reality on the ground is they don’t have access to this. But what they are doing and what they can do is they can increase their productivity, they can improve their livelihoods. And this is having a knock on effect in a way which is very different from the idea of, I would argue, [00:29:00] having agriculture is something which you extract to urban centres.

And so, it is not that we don’t need to think about how to feed our urban centres, we do need to think about that as well. 

Moustapha: Yeah. 

David: But we can also be thinking about what might a future look like if we didn’t have to abandon our rural settings. If our rural communities can thrive, can really be vibrant and can exist, then you can get a different balance between urban and rural in different contexts, which would lead to a different sort of growth for the nation. And that’s sort of part of what you are demonstrating and what you are showing. This could be more forward looking than just thinking about, well, let’s assume urbanization is going to happen. 

Because as we get to a future where the industries require less concentration, well, we might find that a rural, a strong rural [00:30:00] population is going to lead to better livelihoods at scale. So there’s just different ways to imagine the future. And you are succeeding. 

Moustapha: Exactly. Yes. Thank you. And you see, you know what happened? Now he has completely changed his mind last month. We had the visit of the Minister of Agriculture. He came to INRAN. You know, he spent more than six hours, the minister. He visited our activities, the activities of IPM, the activities of mouche.  

David: Yeah, the black soldier fly.

Moustapha: And so many things that are so natural, and he said he has never known that at INRAN we have all those solutions. And he promised to the director general that he’s going to continue to support and he’s going to involve INRAN in all transformation of the rural communities because INRAN has a solution and everything. 

[00:31:00] He had wanted to come to that meeting, he was a little bit sick and contacted me. He was thinking to invite him, so I informed him, next year. 

David: Next year, next year, this is the 20th anniversary, is the time. And what a wonderful time. 

Moustapha: This is a very, very big opportunity for our countries, not not only the Sahelian countries, I mean for all developing countries, there are so many opportunities. 

David: There is something special about your region, the Sahelian region, about the fact that actually, if you can succeed at getting thriving rural communities, it is a route development which is different to roots which others have taken, but which seems more adapted to your context. And this is something where there seems to be energy behind this right now which I’m excited about.  

I’m gonna just finish because we’ll do another episode on this with a colleague at some point soon. 

Moustapha: Okay. 

David: About discussing the fact, well, you know, we do [00:32:00] a lot of work in technology, in data. There’s no reason that this work should be happening in urban centres. Why don’t we shift the technologists out to rural environments as well? They can work remotely and now they’re stimulating, they’re part of that thriving rural community. That’s a dream I have. I would love to at some point talk to you maybe. 

Maybe we can do another episode, the two of us on that as a vision of what could be in the future. 

Moustapha: Yes, absolutely. 

David: Anyway, we better stop. Thank you so much for your time. This has been wonderful. 

Moustapha: Thank you also.